Senior CNC Applications Lead(5 Axis PARTS PROGRAMMING)
Location: Scarborough, Ontario
Positions Available: 2 to 3
Pay: 110k -120k
Travel: Occasional travel to the United States for customer meetings
About the Opportunity:
We are seeking 2 to 3 experienced Senior CNC Applications Leads specializing in five-axis precision machining to support complex manufacturing projects and strengthen our technical engagement with customers.
This is a hands-on, customer-facing technical leadership opportunity for an experienced machining professional who can translate intricate engineering designs into practical, reliable, and cost-effective manufacturing solutions.
Key Responsibilities:
- CNC Applications and Machining Process Development
- Review customer CAD models, engineering drawings, technical specifications, and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) requirements to assess manufacturability.
- Develop machining strategies for intricate precision components using advanced five-axis CNC machining.
- Determine machining sequences, setups, workholding and fixturing requirements, tooling selections, and cutting strategies.
- Develop, simulate, verify, and optimize CAM programs to support successful machine prove-out and production readiness.
- Personally contribute to programming, setup planning, and prove-out of complex five-axis components.
- Troubleshoot machining challenges involving tool access, part distortion, vibration, material removal, surface finish, dimensional accuracy, and repeatability.
- Support components through first-article inspection and resolve manufacturing issues before production release.
- Collaborate with CNC programmers, machinists, manufacturing engineers, and quality personnel to establish reliable, repeatable manufacturing processes.
- Design for Manufacturability (DFM)
- Lead technical reviews of customer designs to identify manufacturing challenges, cost drivers, and opportunities for improvement.
- Recommend practical design changes involving internal radii, deep pockets, thin walls, tool accessibility, tolerances, datums, surface finishes, and workholding.
- Explain the manufacturing implications of design changes while preserving functional and performance requirements.
- Evaluate alternative manufacturing approaches to balance precision, quality, machining complexity, lead time, and cost.
- Identify opportunities to reduce setup time, cycle time, tooling costs, inspection complexity, and scrap risk.
- Document DFM recommendations, including the rationale, expected benefits, and potential trade-offs.
- Work collaboratively with customer engineering teams to resolve design challenges before production begins.
- Customer Technical Engagement
- Represent the organization's machining expertise during customer design reviews, manufacturing discussions, and new product introduction meetings.
- Travel to customer sites in the United States as required to review components, discuss manufacturing challenges, and recommend appropriate production approaches.
- Lead technical discussions with customer design engineers, manufacturing engineers, and other stakeholders.
- Ask informed questions, clarify design intent, and constructively challenge requirements that introduce unnecessary manufacturing complexity or risk.
- Clearly explain machining strategies, manufacturing limitations, inspection requirements, and design recommendations to technical and commercial audiences.
- Build customer confidence through sound technical judgment, practical recommendations, and professional communication.
- Quoting, Cost Analysis and New Product Introduction
- Support estimating and quoting by evaluating machining complexity, setup requirements, cycle times, tooling costs, material considerations, and inspection requirements.
- Identify cost, lead-time, and scrap-risk drivers during the initial drawing review.
- Recommend appropriate manufacturing approaches for prototypes, first articles, and repeat production quantities.
- Collaborate with estimating, engineering, operations, and quality teams to assess project feasibility and establish realistic manufacturing plans.
- Provide technical input to ensure quoted manufacturing approaches are practical, achievable, and commercially competitive.
- Support new product introduction from initial drawing review through successful first production runs.
- Technical Leadership and Continuous Improvement
- Provide technical guidance and mentorship to CNC programmers, machinists, and other team members.
- Share machining best practices and strengthen internal programming and manufacturing capabilities.
- Establish and maintain clear documentation of machining strategies, DFM recommendations, and process decisions.
- Identify opportunities to improve programming methods, tooling strategies, process consistency, and manufacturing efficiency.
- Support continuous improvement initiatives that enhance quality, productivity, and manufacturing reliability.
- Help establish consistent technical standards for complex five-axis machining projects.
Qualifications and Experience:
- Approximately 10 or more years of hands-on experience in precision CNC machining, advanced manufacturing, machining applications, or a closely related discipline.
- Demonstrated experience programming, setting up, and proving out complex five-axis CNC-machined components.
- Proven ability to take challenging components from engineering drawing review through programming, machining, troubleshooting, and first-article inspection.
- Strong understanding of engineering drawings, GD&T, datum structures, tolerances, surface finishes, and inspection methods.
- Practical knowledge of DFM principles and the ability to recommend changes that improve manufacturability, cost, quality, or lead time.
- Strong CAM programming capability, with Mastercam preferred.
- Experience with hyper MILL, Siemens NX, or comparable CAM systems will also be considered.
- Experience with Fanuc and/or Heidenhain CNC controls.
- Familiarity with advanced five-axis machine tools, ideally including DMG MORI and/or Matsuura equipment.
- Strong knowledge of tooling selection, work holding, fixturing, cutting parameters, machining sequences, and process optimization.
- Experience supporting cost estimation, quoting, prototype development, or new product introduction is an asset.
- Excellent communication skills and confidence leading technical discussions with customers and engineering teams.
- Willingness and ability to travel to the United States for customer meetings as required.
